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While the White House and the Congress do their version of “mine is bigger than yours”, 14 million Americans woke up today unemployed—still.

The last month before Obama took office, over 145.3 million of our friends, neighbors and family were employed. In 2010, the second year of the Obama Administration, and supposedly after the stimulus had fully kicked in, employment actually declined to barely 140 million. Remember Sen. Chuck Schumer telling us the stimulus would “create jobs, jobs, jobs!” ?

In truth, the unemployment rate is a less meaningful statistic and yet every month people in this town hold their breath in anticipation of its release. The fact is the unemployment rate doesn’t tell the whole story because it does not measure, among other data, discouraged workers—who still want to work, mind you—but who have given up looking for work because NO JOBS ARE BEING CREATED! I guess those folks are no longer considered “unemployed” by our government.

I don’t believe the people standing in the unemployment line this morning, or sitting at home desperate because the grace period on paying the mortgage expires in ten days are looking for yet another “jobs agenda” or want to be told that someone else’s employment picture is moving in the right direction. No, all they want is for somebody (at this point ANYBODY) to be honest about the numbers (the real unemployment number) and to stop looking for ways to claim credit or to pat themselves on the back long enough for all of the unemployed to get back to work.